


A Candle to Guide Me

by orphan_account



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe, Assassins & Hitmen, Blood, Character Study, Gangs, Gen, Human, street life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 22:09:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14840069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Ex-gang member Mathew is visited by someone from his past and learns more than he ever expected.Inspired by the Hitman Jones Ask Blog.





	A Candle to Guide Me

**Author's Note:**

> This was made in attempt to rectify the fact that many interactions between fanon Alfred and Matthew were... a bit too sweet, to say the least. I think it ended up a bit like that in the end, but I'm still satisfied with it. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading!

Matthew's mailbox gaped open at him like the mouth of a beast, which was a fitting description, His bills stared back at him, zeroes like the eyes of a cartoon monster.

Worse than his rent, however, was the lazily sealed envelope that was seemingly tossed carelessly next to it. Peeking out of it were crisp United States Dollars bound together with a loose bow red like blood.

Matthew trusted the money about as much as he did the person that sent it to him every month, who somehow calculated the exact amount he needed to pay his bills to the penny without fail, including conversions.

He entertained the idea, for a moment, of caving and using the money. Renting a reasonably large one-person bedroom in Ottawa was bound to make money problems, especially not when combined with retail jobs and community college. It was only thanks to his student loans that he hadn't been kicked out by his landlord his first month, and all of the months after that.

Still, whenever he got the urge, Matthew thought of where the money probably came from, the endless cycle of laundering with the blood of now-dead crime bosses and gang members. His brother was nothing if not thorough when it came to his kills.

Matthew pushed the thought away. Sighing, he walked up the steps to his door, wondering how he was supposed to pay his demanding rent without invoking more loans.

His ajar door was the first red flag. He started using a key when he left the Dust Families, but that didn't mean he forgot how to recognize a bloody and mangled lock pick. Matthew frowned. Either whoever was sent after him was a rank amateur, or...

His suspicions were confirmed when he pushed his door further and saw a tall figure lying in  a scary pool of blood that only brought up childhood memories. The figure's hair was usually blond but currently streaked brown with quickly drying blood. The figure slowly lifted his face to see who had walked into his bout of unconsciousness.

Alfred F. Jones' teeth glinted in the dim light. "Hey, Mattie,"

Then his face fell right back into the pool of blood.

*** *** *** ***

Matthew's childhood education did not help him much in his later life, and this was no exception.

Well, actually he had. He was taught was to kill the dying quickly and silently. But this was  _ Alfred _ they were talking about; pain was cake to him. Plus Arthur would never forgive him, no matter what he might say. That left bringing his brother in and helping him recover.

Another thing Matthew learned was that blood, inevitably, got everywhere. "You are going to clean your own mess after this," Matthew said, pulling his brother upright. He dumped Alfred's body on his bed. "For a change," he added after a thought.

He spent too much time cleaning up Alfred's messes when he was young. He was always finishing off or blackmailing any potential witnesses to whatever over-the-top displays of violence his brother had committed under the Kirkland name. Then Alfred had left, and the remaining Kirkland Family had to fill the void left behind.

Arthur had gotten drunk for days when Alfred left, betraying years of admonishments towards them in the process. Matthew watched over Arthur those days, making sure the drunk didn't hurt himself in a haze. Matthew listened to his ramblings, which were variants of how he was " _going to take down that ungrateful bastard in the cruelest way imaginable_ " which lead Matthew to believe that Alfred's psychopathic tendencies had origins beyond life on the streets.

Right now, his psychopathic brother had a large, gaping cut across his forehead, a sizeable bullet graze on his shoulder, and a shallower one on his knee. He had somehow made it here without being detected by police officers and whoever had shot him. Wherever he was before, it was close by.

It appeared Canada did not have a lack of Dust Families cases after all.

And so the plot thickened. He would have to grill Alfred for information when he woke up. Sighing, Matthew pulled out his box of bandages from under the bed. Just because he had left didn't mean he made precautions, just in case.

*** *** *** ***

Being raised by one of the most notorious underground gangs meant that Matthew was a light sleeper. The step of a boot or the click of a gun could mean the difference between life and death.

He jerked awake at the tiny rustle coming from his bed. He had fallen asleep his head resting on the side of the mattress. Alfred's eyes were squeezed shut and his face was twisted in a grimace. Matthew frowned. What scared a living nightmare? His ever-growing list of grotesque murders? The chaos and suffering of the Dust Wars? Arthur's abominable cooking?

Matthew contemplated bringing a camera to record  for blackmail material he could get out of it when a tiny, scared whisper: "Mom? Dad?" More rustling noises, then a high-pitched, "Mom! Dad!" The words were accompanied by a sob and a sniffle, like a lost child.

But there was no child in the house. There was only him and Alfred.

Oh.

Every member of the Dust Families could be traced back to a handful of people. Matthew had equal claims to the Bonnefoy and Kirkland name, and almost everyone was related to Romolo Vargas or Chlodovech Beilschmidt in one way or another. 

Children were tossed around like a sack of potatoes from family to family at a young age, unable to find any peace until they ended up in the hands of whoever was dominating the streets at that time.

Alfred was a little different. He had been captured after Matthew had fought him on the streets, and for some reason Arthur wanted him around. Arthur had always wanted him around, enough to leave him heartbroken when he left.

Arthur Kirkland, for all his taking-children-and-forcing-them-to-kill-in-his-stead tendencies, could be considered a good man. He taught them how to use weapons but never used any on them (until that July Fourth). He was an invincible and constant (until that July Fourth). A man who killed and pillaged, but never showed that part of himself to the ones he was close to (until that July Fourth).

Maybe that was why Alfred complied to rules of the Dust Families for 5 long years, when he snapped and went back to the streets, promising to never return.

His train of thought was interrupted by a louder, much deeper cry. Alfred sat up with a hiss, having turn on his injured side in his sleep. A much larger stain coated his shirt, which was slowly becoming more white than red. Blue eyes sharpened, moving frantically about the unfamiliar room.

A flash of silver whizzed by Matthew's head, and he thanks his reflexes for avoiding decapitation. The object lodged itself firmly in the door, and suddenly the mysterious appearances of knife markings on room walls during the Cold War made a lot more sense.

Matthew blinked. "That was my door," he said. "I declared neutrality and you put a hole in my door."

Maybe his tone wasn't annoyed enough, or maybe the situation was just too absurd, but at that Alfred started laughing. He winced as his laughter strained his wounds, eventually resolving to snicker through tears.

"I'm sorry," he said, grinning and clearly not sorry at all. "I'll get you a new door, I promise." Apparently almost bleeding to death in another country wasn't enough to make him any less obnoxious or inconsiderate, Matthew noted. But that was to be expected.

"You'd better," he muttered. "What are you doing here?" The best way to confront his brother was to be blunt. Any subtle connotations had a tendency to go right over his head. Whether that was because he was genuinely confused or because he wanted to be annoying, Matthew could not tell.

The smile vanished from his brother's face. "I was hoping you wouldn't ask that," he said. He looked almost shameful, an oddity from someone who would willfully kill a building full of people with nothing but a smoke bomb.

"Alfred," Matthew said, used to his brother's insane antics, "What did you do?". He was thankful still retained the ability to imply  _ I will shove a hockey stick down your throat  _ with every syllable after all these years.

"Well," he said slowly, scratching the back of his head, "I may have tailed someone after a little birdie told me about a base being built here." His hand was flaked with blood when it returned to the gun in his lap.

"What do you mean, a little birdie told you?" He searched through the dusty files in the corner his brain, trying to put a name to the phrase. "You mean Gilbert?" The man in question was loud, albino, and had always had a small yellow bird perched on his body. "Since when you did let the Beilschmidts go near anything?"

Alfred shrugged. "Since a few years after you left. There was Ivan and the Soviet Family to deal with. Lesser of two evils, the devil you know versus the devil you don't, yadda yadda yadda. Besides—" here his brother grinned, though it wasn't his Hollywood smile as much as it was the one that made everyone piss their pants—"if he had done anything funny, I would have dismembered him."

"The Soviet Family? The Cold War is still going on?" Matthew had cut off all communication from the Families when he had left. He also, however, doubted his brother's ability to restrain himself from doing something irreversible, leading to a massacre on both sides

"Oh no, the Soviet Family dissolved, but Ivan's still being... difficult," which in Regular Person Speak translated to: "I killed and/or helped most of the Soviet Family members escape but Ivan still has more bombs so I can't do anything yet.  _ Yet _ ,"

Matthew grimaced, sparing a thought for the poor souls that had gotten in Alfred's way. "Wait, Ivan? Is he the one you tailed to Canada?"

"Yup," Alfred said. "I've managed to destroy the base, but I'll have to ask him what he was thinking next time."

"You're not going anywhere in that state," Matthew said. "Do Francis and Arthur know?" Not that Francis and Arthur would be able to keep him in check, only the possible destruction of the collective Dust Families could so that.

"Nope!" he grinned at this, popping the p like he hadn't just almost died with no one around to know he was gone. Like he could string up human life, including his own, like a pile of laundry. It was at moments like this Matthew wanted to strangle him most, but he also felt a little, maybe just a little sorry.

"Then you should call them," Matthew said. "I'll make you call them,"

"Why? So eager to get rid of me?" He smirked a bit like how Gilbert smirked whenever he said he liked being alone. It fooled absolutely no one who knew them well.

"I didn't mean it like that," he said, half exasperated and half scared. How "I just meant that they should know where you are," he added quietly. "They're probably worried."

"Worried?" Alfred echoed, sounding increasingly bewildered. "Why? They both know I can take care of myself."

This was true. Alfred probably had a kill list larger than either of theirs, but his stupidity  astounded Matthew. Didn't he know how Arthur fell apart after he had left? Didn't he ever fall asleep to Francis's lullabies in his embrace?

The answer crashed down on him like a tidal wave; no, he did not.

Oh.

A new image of his brother was starting to take hold in Matthew's head, an image that made much more sense than the assembled patchwork of childhood trauma and rumors he had before. An image, he realized that was a lot more like his own than he had ever thought.

"Dude?" the word jerked him from his thoughts back to the present. "Are you alright?" Alfred asked with a surprisingly natural air of concern.

Matthew felt like he was seeing the world with clear eyes for the first time. 'Yeah," he said, "Just, uh, thinking." His eyes widened as they landed on the clock on his wall. "I need to go to work soon," he said, getting up.

Alfred, having no shame in stalking his brother, asked, "You mean your shift at the pancake house? Can't you afford to miss a shift for today?"

"No, of course not. I have rent, groceries, student loans..." he could imagine his brother's look of confusion at that. Mentally preparing himself, he turned to face the storm.

"Wait, you still need to pay off your loans? Dude, what about the money I sent you?"

Most of the money had been squirreled away in a separate bank account, probably to never see the light of day. "It's in US dollars, not Canadian. And can't it be traced back to whoever you  killed for it?"

"What? No, dude all of that is 100% civilian. It's extra scrap from Francis' florist shop, Arthur's weird-ass magic place, and my gun rental biz. Don't ask me why, Francis insisted."

Francis. Papa. He often wondered if anyone would track him down or remember him at all. Whenever he did, it was always Francis that showed up with concern. Francis was the one he was the most comfortable admitting he missed when he swore the wind sounded like screams in the dead of night.

"Does he know where I am?"  He asked finally.

"Oh yeah. He asked me for the address." Alfred had that twist his mouth that indicated a particularly good bargain. "Got a hefty sum for it too."

"You sold my information?" Matthew sputtered. Almost immediately he wished he could take it back. Alfred was Alfred, he didn't care about anyone. Why Matthew expected otherwise was the bigger mystery. "Why didn't he ever come?"

Alfred simply raised a bored eyebrow at the outburst. "Oh, he would have, but Arthur was all, 'No, you have to let them go if they want to, you have to respect his decision' and stuff. And I sold it to  _ Francis _ , dude. The last one in our family that's gonna hurt you. No one else knows," His face twisted suddenly and he muttered something under his breath, but Matthew could only make out the word  _ Ivan _ .

Galvanized, he swung his legs over the side of the bed."On second thought, you might actually wanna go to work," he said, frowning thoughtfully. "There are a lot of customers when you work your shift, right?"

Matthew nodded. To be honest, he could not have done much else. "Then the pancake house is probably safer after all," Alfred mused half to himself. "I have to, ah, drop by Ivan's place," His smile was full of shark's teeth and at that moment, Matthew couldn't help but be a little scared for Ivan Braginsky.

"Don't," Matthew said impulsively. It seemed wrong their first meeting in years ended so abruptly. Alfred looked at him quizzically, not catching on. "Not yet. At least take a shower or something. You look like a maniac."

His brother's grin was the brightest and coldest thing in the room. "Good. That's what I hoped."

Of course, it was. Just because he had found the scrawny kid he had met on the streets in Alfred again, didn't mean he was the same. "Then.. just don't die," He meant it, too.

Alfred's face uncharacteristically softened at that, and for the first time Matthew saw him for what he was; a hitman, a soldier, and a teenage boy. Vicious, determined, and full of  _ life _ . "I won't," he said, eyes shining. "Thanks for everything, Mattie."

Then he walked out, head high and guns loaded at his side, back into the world Matthew had forsaken, but then he looked back. Meeting his brother's eye, his face split into the widest, most genuine grin he had ever seen. He winked and broke into a run, his laugh ringing like a bell through the building.

Matthew found himself smiling. Maybe it would turn out well, after all. 

*** *** *** ***

The attack came out of nowhere, which was how they always came. Street kids always darted from the shadows, hyped on adrenaline after hours of scouring the streets for rich and weak victims. The qualities almost always went hand in hand. Almost.

Most kids glanced at the suspiciously pistol-like shape in Matthew's jacket and backed off. Other, less bright kids would try to jump him with a knife, which always ended with the sharp end pointed in their direction, not his.

His opponent was a street fighter, his use of force and speed gave that away. But he used cloth with metal spikes as makeshift brass knuckles, making it impossible to use against him. He was not shaky and desperate like amateurs, or brutish and rough like some of the experienced, but  had an air of dogged sorrow.

Despite that, the two were evenly matched, his opponent with (as he later found out) 5 years of street fighting, and Matthew with formal training just as long.

That was until Matthew pulled out the gun.

Alfred had the advantage, pinning down Matthew's legs with his own in an impressive display of strength, but unable to do much to restrain his squirming torso. A brief pause where Alfred raised his hand to pin down his shoulder, and that was all Matthew needed.

He reached into his jacket and whipped out his gun in a large and sweeping motion, knocking Alfred off his feet in it's unexpectedness and power. His eyes widened at the sight, and he tried to scramble away.

The sight tempted Matthew to fire in a way he could not understand, but could not resist. He fired.

He watched his opponent go down with a cry of pain that reverberated through the streets, his body hitting the ground with a thud that rang through his ears.

Now, Matthew wasn't Alfred; he was peaceful and had little blood lust, not a trigger-happy maniac that handed out bullets like they were candy. The sight of a fresh blood slowly creeping down a foot snapped Matthew out the furious trance he had been in. He pulled out his phone and dialed Arthur with shaking hands, while an increasingly large pool of blood seeped into the ground around his attacker's fallen body.

But the damage had been done, the bullet had left the chamber. And there was no denying the adrenaline he had felt in the brief moments between when he pulled the trigger and the bullet met Alfred's leg.

So perhaps, he reflected, he did understand Alfred before their reunion. Maybe they were more alike than he had originally thought.

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, there was so much more to this verse I wanted to write! There was supposed to be a prequel of sorts that explained why Alfred left, but then I realized it had nothing to do with Matthew and Alfred's relationship and just my ASOUE side making an appearance. There was also a sequel with Ivan, but that also had nothing to do with Matthew and Alfred's relationship so I scrapped it. If anyone wants me to write it though... leave kudos and comments!


End file.
